YouTube Gold: JJ The Psychic

Roy Williams often said that he was not as good a coach as his mentor Dean Smith and frankly, he was right.

What’s that you say? Williams won 903 games to Dean Smith’s 879 total? And Ol’ Roy won three national championships to Dean’s two? How can you say Smith was better?

Well, that’s easy – because he was. And here’s an easy way to demonstrate the veracity of that audacious assertion about those two Tar Heel titans of coaching (it sounds better if you read that last bit in Howard Cosell’s voice).

In 2005, Duke and UNC were locked into a typically tight contest in Cameron that came down to the last possession, but Duke defended so well that the Heels couldn’t get a shot off.

After the game, JJ Redick was interviewed and he said that “I knew exactly what play they were going to run. They ran it last year to beat UConn.”

And that simple statement shows why Smith was a much better coach than was Williams because in a million years, you could not have known, with certainty, what play Smith would call. In fact, he would probably have at least 10 that you’d have to be ready for, but you’d have no idea which one he might actually employ.

And furthermore, you could look for a long time to find a game where a Smith-coached team didn’t even get a shot off in the closing seconds because had he called it, Smith would have had multiple options built into that play. We’re not saying they would have automatically gotten a winning shot of course, but would they have at least gotten a shot off? We’d be shocked if they didn’t.

And that, ladies and gentlemen. as much as anything, illustrates why Smith was a better coach than Williams.